Terms of Service

Thanks for using The Paranormal Society!We love you guys, we really do. As a user-driven community, you make us great. But with that also comes terms that we graciously ask you to stick to. These terms of service keeps everything running smoothly and ensures that everyone has the most awesome experience here. We also implement various things for your safety and privacy. Yes, we know it's long and is a lot of boring stuff, but it's important for you to know. And to make it easier, we've added a nice little summary next to each section. See, we're looking out for you. Thanks for being part of the best paranormal site ever!

1. Terms

The Paranormal Society is a property of Studio 4am. By accessing The Paranormal Society www.theparanormalsociety.org you are agreeing to be bound by these Terms of Service and Conditions of Use and all applicable laws and regulations and agree that you are responsible for compliance. The material contained in this website is protected by applicable copyright, trademark and service mark law. As a condition of use, you affirm that you will not use any content contained within this website for unlawful or fraudulent use, or any other use not intended by The Paranormal Society. Use of www.theparanoralsociety.org by you constitutes your agreement to the Terms of Service.

Basically,By using The Paranormal Society, you agree to the Terms. All companies have them; These are ours

2. Limitations

Although we make reasonable efforts to verify the reliability of information provided, we do not guarantee against human and/or machine errors, omissions, delays, interruptions, or losses. Regardless of our own beliefs, the world of the paranormal remains a mystery. Although we strive to provide you with accurate and reliable information, we do not guarantee that any information contained in this website will be found useful and effective and that any methods or advice will be successful. In no event shall The Paranormal Society, its parent, partners, associates, or staff be liable for any damages (including, but not limited to, incidental and consequential damages, mental, emotional and personal injury or wrongful death), whether based on warranty, contract, tort, or any other legal theory arising out of the use or inability to use the materials on The Paranormal Society's website.

3. Disclaimer

The materials on The Paranormal Society are provided "as is". The Paranormal Society makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights. The Paranormal Society website is not intended to provide psychological and/or medical advice and should not be interpreted as such. Under no circumstances shall The Paranormal Society be liable for misuse of any information contained within this website. Your use of this website constitutes your acceptance and understanding that it is not a substitute or replacement for any type of medical service. The Paranormal Society does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the material on its website or otherwise relating to such materials, or on any sites linked to and from www.theparanormalsociety.org.
The use of information contained within this website is at your own risk.While here, you may encounter information, images or video that may be disturbing or frightening or what you may deem as inappropriate. This is the nature of the subject matter. If you're sensitive to this type of content, we advise you to cease use of The Paranormal Society.

Pretty Much This,We don't guarantee anything. We aren't physicians and don't provide medical advice. You chose what you do; We aren't responsible for what happens as a result. This is a paranormal website, so content may be disturbing. You've been warned

4. Site Staff

The Paranormal Society's site management staff has the responsibility of maintaining a safe, healthy and productive environment. To do so, all site staff has full authority to moderate, edit or delete content and suspend, ban or terminate any user at their sole discretion without question or warning.We may do this for various reasons, including informational or typographical errors, to exclude copyrighted content not posted in according to the Fair Use Doctraine, removal of material that violates our Inappropriate Content policy or at the request of copyright owners or, under certain circumstances, at the request of members (their content only).In addition, material contained within articles or other areas may not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of The Paranormal Society. Much of the information is presented in a purely editorial fashion, left for you to decide.

To Sum It Up,We have an awesome site with even more awesome members. To keep it that way, we need to keep all in-check. Don't abuse; don't give our staff a hard time. Their job is tough enough already.

5. Revisions and Errata

The materials appearing on The Paranormal Society could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. In the quest of evolution and to bring you the most magnificent, mind-blowing paranormal experience, we commonly make changes to the materials contained here at any time without notice. However, if we change something major, we'll let you know.

In a Nutshell,We believe we created the most epic experience for you, and are continuing to evolve. But we're not perfect, mistakes happen.

6. Links

With the intent on furthering the research into the paranormal, or to provide entertainment value, The Paranormal Society displays external links to third party websites. The Paranormal Society, its parent, Staff or partners are not responsible for the content of any linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement or support by The Paranormal Society. Use of any such linked website is at the user's own risk.

The Lowdown,We display various links that are off-site. Most are awesome, but when they're not, we're not responsible

7. Conduct

Do not abuse, threaten, harass, intimidate or commit any other unlawful or inappropriate act upon, or attempt to commit upon, any member or user. When stating your personal opinion regarding any subject matter, we ask that you refrain from lashing out or insulting.

Impolite Behavior: Insulting, rude, obnoxious, hateful, or abusive behavior towards other members will not be tolerated. Includes racial/Ethnic slurs, comments about sexual preference and/or character, name calling, innuendos, and “Read-between-the-lines” remarks;

Personal Attacking: Debate the topic at hand, not the character of the person posting or replying to the topic. Don’t question, comment on, or insult a member’s education, mental status, background or personal status;

Attacking or Harassing any member or engaging in any personal argument not within the scope of the site;

Loose Terminology: Do not correct another member’s terminology they chose to use. For example: If one chooses to call it ‘Ghost Hunting’, don’t tell them it’s ‘Paranormal Research’. Nobody is an expert, and terminology is up to the individual member;

Profanity: Using crude, profane, and/or vulgar language is not allowed in the forums. You are also prohibited from using net-speak language in an attempt to bypass filters or this rule;

Public Affection/Suggestive Conduct: Verbal or visual, innuendos, or tongue-in-cheek displays of affection are prohibited. Don't engage in sexually oriented personal exchanges in public;

Spelling and Grammar: Don’t point out or correct the spelling or grammatical mistakes of others. That has no bearing on the topic and is nobody's place to do so. If a post is unintelligible, report it to a moderator for review;

Intentional Disruption and Trolling: You are not to do anything that is considered to cause, or potentially cause, a disruption of the flow of normal discussion. We define 'trolling' as the act of causing deliberate disruption or offense. Such behavior involves the posting of comments designed to provoke or annoy other members;

Posting any users private information;

Attempting to obtain any member's private information by any means;

Hijacking forum threads. Hijacking means to post non-related comments or to change the subject of a thread. If you have a new topic, post it in a new forum;

Off Topic: Off-topic threads are not allowed. This is a paranormal related website, posted content should be relevant;

Duplicate Posting: Be sure to search for what you're looking for first. Duplicate posting is not allowed and will be deleted;

Pointless Content: Do not post pointless or non-productive threads, ie: A post about a dog doing tricks or a magician;

Moderator Based Actions: Actions taken against a member or member's posts are not to be discussed in public. Contact the moderator personally for inquiries. Violations will result in deleted content and immediate member bans, no exception, no warning. Don't argue;

Flamebaiting: Do not taunt or bait another member in to an argument;

Bumping: You may not 'bump' threads in an attempt to gain exposure to yourself or any other member. Bumping is considered the posting of meaningless information, posting one-liners, or any other action to deliberately keep a thread hot or to promote a member or yourself. Moderators use their own discretion, depending on the nature of the post, as to whether or not it's removed.

Here's the Deal,Just be reasonable and sensible. Don't do anything crazy or post material that makes us or you look bad or is illegal or inappropriate. And remember that old saying your mom always told you: Treat others the way you wanna be treated. Do this, and we'll all live happily ever after

8. Evidence Posting and Analysis

Ok, a touchy spot, but we can get through it. If you're reviewing the evidence of others, you gotta stick to the subject at hand and refrain from personal attacks. If you're submitting that amazing new capture for review, be prepared for both positive and negative feedback. We really wanna see the paranormal field advance, so if other site members believe your evidence is not factual or can be debunked, expect to be told so. On the other hand, if it's truly hardcore, the members will give ya a pat on the back and you can stand proud.Keep this in mind: It's your choice, your words, but if you label your evidence as 100% irrefutable proof, be prepared to be questioned and the evidence to be heavily analyzed. You may also be asked to back-up your claims of authenticity. So saying "100% total proof" of whatever just isn't a hot idea.

The Bottom Line,You have evidence, we all wanna see it. So fire away my friend. But not everyone will agree, and they're gonna tell you. So take and give criticism respectfully. Remember, it's nothing personal

9. Accounts and Registration

Some services of The Paranormal Society require you to register and maintain an account, which is free of charge. When registering, you are required to provide a minimum amount of information. This information must be accurate and kept up to date, including a current valid email address. You may not use the username or name of any person, company, entity or trademark or service mark that you're not lawfully authorized to use, or a username that is offensive, vulgar or obscene. You also may not use an email address as your username.You are responsible for maintaining your account and password and the related privacy of such. You are also solely responsible for any activity on your account, including posts, uploads, friend requests or any other communication or action.Registration at The Paranormal Society is open to everyone, however, if you are under 18 years of age, you'll need the consent of a parent or guardian to register an account, who will then become liable for your actions within the site.

In Short,To use many services, you'll need to create an account. We're strict on how your account is handled. There's no leniency here, so keep it current, don't abuse the service and others and be responsible. Yes, we do pay attention

10. Suspension and Termination

The Paranormal Society may suspend or terminate any and all services provided to you for any reason, at any time, with or without notice to you, including a breach of terms. For violations of procedural terms (such as inappropriate images, inappropriate posting and/or conduct, non-valid email account, inappropriate username or user information), you will be notified and given 48 hours to take action. If after 48 hours it is not corrected, your account will be terminated. The following violations will result in automatic termination of your account:

Threats of any kind, against any member, staff or the site itself;

Hacking, or attempting to hack, any member's account or revealing personally identifiable information about any member or staff;

Posting sexually suggestive content or pornographic material;

Approaching any underage member in any sexual, intimate or suggestive manner;

Discussions or comments of personal harm or attempted personal harm to another person (any such action will be reported to authorities);

Threats, encouragement, or discussions of suicide (This is strictly forbidden. If you feel any of these, we insist you contact a friend, family member, medical professional or Law Enforcement immediately).

The Gist,We reserve the right to suspend, terminate or refuse service to anyone, at any time, for any reason. And if you go berserk, we're gonna kick you out. Yup, it's that simple.

11. Forum Content and Posting

The Paranormal Society encourages members to post content and participate in discussions, groups, and posts. Just remember that you're responsible for the content you post. In that regard, we have a few guidelines:

Titles in threads should to be descriptive of the thread. One-offs, such as "So cool?" or "Ohhhh wow" or "This is neat" are not permitted. Folks should know exactly what they will be reading before opening the thread. No guess work. An exception to this is posts that are placed in the categories 'I Need Help' and 'Share Your Experiences';

Responses to threads should be pertinent to the subject: Members are to refrain from excessive use of short replies, such as off topic comments;

New threads are not to be constructed solely of one-liners, with or without links. If you want to include a link in your thread, it should contain information relevant to the subject matter. Example: The posting of a thread that includes a single external link to a page located outside of The Paranormal Society;

Cross Posting: Posting duplicate forum threads on multiple websites. We understand you may be looking for help and will use different websites, and that's cool. We want you to get the info you need. But posting exact content on The Paranormal Society and lots of other websites simultaneously is discouraged, as it may be considered spam. Such posts could be deleted.

Balanced and Fair Debates: All sides of a debate should be represented in order to further the understanding of the topic. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion;

Topic Bashing: Don’t reply to a thread just to bash it. If you disagree will something enough to call it invalid or fake, then provide reasonable information to back-up your opinion.;

Proxy or Group Posting: Do not post for another member, do not ask another member to post content on your behalf, and do not post as a group;

Quoting: Only quote what is necessary to make your comment. Example: Don’t quote the entire opening post only to comment on one line.

Essentially,The forum is a huge part of the site, so post, post, post away! Just use common sense and post stuff that's related, and don't be a jerk to others.

12. Content, Rights and Fair Use

We ask that any content you post be relevant in nature, with the exception of the "Community", where you're permitted to post non-related content. We don't take responsibility for, nor endorse, support, represent or guarantee the truthfullness, accuracy or validity of any content posted by users. In addition, you may encounter material, even based on pertinent subject matter, that may be offensive to some.

11.1 Videos: We allow you to upload and add videos in the Community and forum. Any such videos are to be of related subject matter. We no longer permit off-the-wall videos. Please make note of the proper category when adding videos.

11.2 Photos: You are allowed to add photos to your personal photo gallery in the Community, however, in order to maintain a comfortable atmosphere, any uploaded photos shouldn't contain any sexual, intimate or sexually suggestive content nor depict any type of sexual lifestyle.

Rights: Although you retain copyrights, by submitting, posting or displaying content, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, copy, process, transmit, display and distribute such content in any or all media distribution methods, including advertisement, as well as the right to sublicense.Fair Use: You may use any information contained within the site (with the exception of legal information, such as terms of service and other policies, which are proprietary) for any purpose as outlined under the Fair Use Doctrine (17 U.S.C.§ 107) for the purpose of research, education, criticism, commenting or news reporting, provided the content is not modified in any way and proper credit is attributed to us. The Paranormal Society grants rights of use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The Essence,You can do all sorts of fun stuff here, but make sure it's on topic. Also, you grant us a license to use content you post. But don't worry, we're respectful. Also, we don't mind if you share our content. In fact, we encourage it, and love for educators, students and researchers to use our content. But please credit it to us.

13. Projects and Advertising

The Paranormal Society encourages and supports the promotion of paranormal research/investigation groups. Individuals and groups are eligible to receive free advertising, including banner creation and promotion, so long as they are not a commercial, for profit organization, either registered or unregistered. Commercial or for-profit organizations are not eligible for such advertisement and promotion and should utilize the proper channel for commercial advertising by contacting us. Also, don't spam us with ads or other irrelevent stuff that nobody wants to see. Oh how we hate spam! We catch spammers and block IP's, so just don't do it.

Listen,We love the paranormal. We wanna help get you noticed, so if you're a group, you can advertise for free. If you're for-profit and want us to plug you, you'll need to buy ad blocks. Everything costs money, right?

What This Means,We put our heart and soul into this project. We respect copyright, so please respect ours. We're nice, we share under Fair Use. Just don't say it's yours when it's not. And if you think something is wrong, stay calm and let's talk about it. There's a form you can fill out for this.

Trademarks and Service Marks

A trademark is any name, acronym, abbreviation, logo, image, sound, design, color, symbol, or any combination of, that is used to identify the business, services or goods of a company or individual, and to distinguish such business, services, or goods from another. Such trademarks are valuable assets and improper use can cause these assets to become diluted or generic.

Therefore, Studio 4am restricts the use of its intellectual trademarks and servicemarks. The Paranormal Society name and logo, and all other associated marks are used as globally identifiable Service Marks of The Paranormal Society and Studio 4am and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws. Do not use any logos, or any other logo displayed on this website or any acronym, abbreviation or associated name, without prior written authorization from Studio 4am or the original copyright owner.

Examples of protected information include, but is not limited to:

layout and coding, which is licensed as proprietary;

Logos,acronyms and related relevant abbreviations;

Terms, definitions, and terminology;

Supplied information, including personal blogs of The Paranormal Society members;

To Make It Easy,Just remember that a person or entity doesn't have to officially register something for it to be considered a trademark or servicemark. Respect the ownership and it'll be easy street all the way.

Privacy

Your privacy is very important to us. We know you care about how your information is used and shared. Accordingly, we have developed this Policy in order for you to understand how we collect, use, communicate and disclose and make use of personal information. The following outlines our privacy policy and our promise to you.

Before or at the time of collecting personal information, we will identify the purposes for which information is being collected.

We collect and use personal information solely with the objective of fulfilling the purposes specified by us, unless we obtain the consent of the individual concerned or as required by law.

We will only retain personal information as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes.

We will collect personal information by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the individual concerned.

Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which it is to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete, and up-to-date.

We will protect personal information by reasonable security safeguards against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

We will make readily available to members information about our policies and practices relating to the management of their personal information and how it's stored and protected.

Your email address will not be used outside of the scope of this website.

We will not release your personal information to anyone, including law enforcement, unless so ordered and documented by legal means by a court of authority.

30 days after closure of your account, your personal information will be permanently destroyed and will not be recoverable by any means.

Cookies: Cookies, cookies... What are these things? Well, cookies are tiny alphanumric packets of information that we send to and store on your computer when you visit us. This little cookie tells us how you visit our website, what pages are visited and how many times. It also stores other things, like your login information so that when you visit again, if the session hasn't expired, you won't need to login. Cookies are also used to measure the traffic so we can see what pages are popular or where we need to improve. The cookies don't collect any personally identifiable information from you, nor does it tell us anything else about you. You're completely free to disable the acceptance of cookies through your web browser, though we don't recommend it. Really, they're harmless and they allow you to take advantage of more cool features here.

Information: We only collect certain information, such as what's necessary to register an account and what you choose to provide during registration and completion of your profile. We may use this information to provide you with a better experience while visiting us. We do not collect any login, username or password information. Our staff doesn't have access to sensitive information. The Paranormal Society will not sell or release your information to any third party for any reason, nor will we use it for any other purpose outside the scope of this website.

Sharing Your Info: We don't share, rent or sell your information with any third party. We don't release your information to anyone (except as noted above). Our staff has access to your basic information, such as your name, date of birth, city and state (if so provided). However, your information will only be accessed under certain circumstances, such as support requests. As a means of connecting you with other enthusiasts, you have the ability to friend and interact with these folks. When you do, they're able to see the information you've provided in your profile. But you chose whether or not they can see certain things, such as your name, date of birth and location. Anything given beyond basic information needed to register is up to you and is your responsibility.

Email Communications: You will occasionally receive email communications from us. There are two categories:1. Mandatory: You will receive notifications of changes, legal notices, username or password reminders or other system emails. You can't opt out of these.2. By default: You are set to rceive notifications regarding certain actions performed on the site, like responses to forum posts, friend requests, new instant messages, responses to your Community posts or comments, new videos or photos or group posts. These are voluntary and you may opt out by visiting your profile in the Community page and your forum settings.

Law Enforcement:Studio 4am and The Paranormal Society will comply with authorities, however, only when legal process has been followed and required notices have been received, as set forth by the laws of jurisdiction. Non-public information about The Paranormal Society users will not be released to law enforcement except in compliance with a subpeona or court order by court of jurisdiction, or certain emergency requests. Access to a user's private information, including content such as personal messages, locked blogs or private photos, require a search warrant.

Notification of Release: In any case where we've been ordered to release private information, we will notify that user of such release, including a copy of the order prior to the release, unless we're prohibited. In any such case, we will notify the user after the release of information.

Thrid Parties: We display advertisments on The Paranormal Society, and these advertisers may use cookies on our website. We have no control over these, but we do filter advertisers as to maintain your privacy as efficiently as possible.

We are committed to conducting our business in accordance with these principles in order to ensure that the confidentiality of personal information is protected and maintained. Though we're not perfect and anything is possible, we do everything we can to ensure your privacy is kept safe. If you have concerns on how we use your information, just drop us a line.

Basically,

We take your privacy very seriously and collect only certain information about you, but none is personally identifiable. We also use cookies to enhance your experience and to give us info about our site traffic. We don't sell or rent your info to anyone, nor will we release it. It is encrypted and not viewable by anyone. You will receive certain email communications from us, as outlined. Most of these you can opt out of.